WL city employees adjusting to new offices

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) – About 15 West Lafayette city employees have settled into their temporary home at the West Lafayette Police Department after a mold problem forced them to relocate. A significant amount of mold was discovered after two water pipes filled the basement with water last month.

“We are aware of a situation here now that we need to get re-mediated, so we’re doing everything in our power to get people out as expeditiously as possible,” West Lafayette Mayor John Dennis said.

“We ended coming up with some space to house the mayor’s office, human resources, IT and the clerk’s office,” WLPD Deputy Chief Chris Leroux said.

Leroux said the department was able to turn conference rooms into offices to make room for city employees.

“Obviously operationally it’s caused some challenges for how we operate and then needs of the other divisions or departments that’s come in, but it’s going fairly smooth,” Leroux said.

With many employees out of city hall two offices remain. Dennis said it’s been a challenge to find a temporary home for the redevelopment and engineering departments.

“They do a lot of interaction with contractors and citizens, so they need to be easily accessible, ADA accessible, so there’s a lot of thought that needs to go into making decisions as to where we’ll relocate them,” Dennis said.

While the search continues for the remaining departments both police department and city employees are adjusting to the new changes which may last for a while.

“Our mindset is they are here until there is a fix, so that could be a long haul,” Leroux said.

In order to fix the problem, all of the drywall in the basement of city hall has to be replaced, but that process can’t begin until all of the employees are out of the building. With two offices remaining, Dennis said they’re working as fast as they can to find them a new home. He said there’s not a definite timeline of how long repairs will take once they get started.